With Thanksgiving behind us and Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Year’s right around the corner, we’re in the thick of the winter holiday season. If you are among the nearly 90% of Americans who use decorative lights during the holidays and you WERE NOT climbing all over your house hanging Christmas lights already, consider moving to LEDs this year. Here’s why.

Save energy: Just read the packages and you’ll see that LED lights use less energy than traditional holiday lights – about 90% less. When you multiply the number of strings of lights you use by the number of hours each day and the number of days, you see that the energy savings really add up.

The US Department of Energy estimates that if every household switched to using LED holiday lights, the country would save approximately $410 million in electricity costs. Want to figure out what cost savings goes along with your energy savings? Plug your info into this holiday light cost calculator.

Save time: Are your old strings of lights in a tangle, again? Grab that ball of old, energy-inefficient lights and trade them in for new LED lights. Some stores provide trade-in discounts (Home Depot is one) when you make the switch. Or you can recycle your old lights at the Holiday LEDs site, and they’ll email you a coupon for $25 off your next purchase.

Look great: Now that LEDs are becoming the norm, they are available in more and more styles to meet the need of every holiday decorator. Whether you like colored or white, round or flame-style bulbs, regular strings or icicle style, you’ll be able to find the look you love in LEDs.

And while I’m a big fan of strings of LED holiday lights, I’m an even bigger fan of the new LED bulbs for inside the house. With our long, dark winter days here in the Pacific Northwest, we’re using more lights for more hours during the day and night. Switching just a few of your most-used bulbs to LEDs can save energy and money. We did a story on the cost savings of LED bulbs more than a year ago and I can assure you that prices have gone down. While the bulbs can be expensive, they last up to 25 times as long and use only a fraction of the energy as a regular light bulb. No matter how you look at it, LEDs are a bright idea.